The Maastricht Cerebral Monitor (MCM) for the neonatal intensive care unit

Abstract

Although long-term monitoring of cerebral activity can be important in neonatal intensive care, the complexity of multichannel EEG makes it less suitable for this purpose. In the past, a cerebral function monitor (CFM)was developed that analyses EEG. The output parameter of the CFM is a semi-logarithmic amplitude distribution resulting from the amplification, bandpass filtering, compression, rectification and smoothing of the single-channel EEG. Drawbacks of the CFM include its inflexibility and limited single-channel processing capacity and its lack of functionality for data storage, review or re-analysis. Modern computers are powerful enough that a system can be built which does not have these drawbacks. We have developed such a system: the Maastricht Cerebral Monitor (MCM). The MCM is a flexible system that not only overcomes the CFM drawbacks but also provides advanced signal analysis. It was developed with a software system (Poly) for acquisition, high quality real-time display, on-line analysis and storage of physiological signals. The MCM processes three EEG signals in the amplitude and frequency domains. Other parameters provided by the MCM are asymmetry of absolute frequency powers, percentage suppression, mean and 90% spectral edge frequency. Electrode impedance is recorded as a measure of quality of the recording.